Friday, August 4, 2017

“I’m thinking of hiring a writing service.” Imagine hearing those words from a fellow grad student who’s highly stressed about their thesis or dissertation. “Riding service?” you ask. Then you quickly realize your colleague isn’t talking about Lyft or Uber.

Actually, the service in question is likely a person or business that offers—for a price—various types and levels of help with a writing project’s potentially stressful components: planning, revising, editing, proofreading, or formatting sections of the document. But then there are shady services that even offer to “help” with the writing by employing ghost writers to compose texts for paying clients. That’s taboo! Submitting academic work as one’s own when that work was actually made (entirely or in parts) by someone else is unacceptable. Words to the wise: if you’re thinking of paying for help with aspects of your writing project, beware of so-called writing services. (But, in some cases, you might want to consider working with an editing service.) If you wonder why we pass these words along, take a look through the comments sections at the ends of our blog posts.

Writing Services Galore

We’re well aware that numerous paid writing firms exist because posts to this blog regularly attract brief comments with dubious hyperlinks to a wide range of such services. Consider the murky details behind comments received over the past two months:

- On July 15, in response to our July 7 post about ProQuest blogs, a few bits of generic praise came our way from someone at an eerily sparse blog. A hyperlink in the comment leads to the sketchy homepage of a UK-based company that entices the visitor to enter personal data and information about a writing project in order to receive an estimate on how much it will cost to have the firm do the work. Not wanted!

- On July 5, in response to our June 16 post about services for international grad students at NIU, we received another short bromide, this time from someone whose “name” is a link to site featuring a disturbingly glowing review of an online firm that offers academic ghost writers for hire. We’re not interested!

- On June 19, in response to our June 2 post about taking writing outside, someone sent nice feedback with direct references to topics we wrote about. But then the letdown: the comment has no author’s name but is instead represented by a link to a website in Australia offering essays for sale. We want nothing to do with such sites!

- Finally, on July 21, in response to our May 19 post about facing the fear of the blank page, we received a positive comment from someone appearing to represent another essay-writing service. But this time, the attached link doesn’t lead to such a business but instead, oddly, to a 2015 article at The Huffington Post about the increase of undergraduate and graduate students paying to have papers written for them. The article points to an alarming trend.

At Project Thesis NIU, we don’t endorse paid writing services. When doing routine blog maintenance, we eventually delete comments with hyperlinks to such services. In the past we’ve been inclined to let a comment with a suspect link stay as long as wording in the comment is remotely related to ideas we write about in a post. But now, after digging deeper into the above recent comments, we plan to delete anything associated with a writing service.

Editing Services: Wheat from the Chaff

Aside from essay mills, many places offer student writers ethical and professional editorial assistance. Fee-based editing services tend not to publicize through brief comments to our blog posts. But they sometimes approach us. Several months ago, for instance, our office received a promotional piece in the mail from Editors for Students, a Minneapolis firm that specializes in academic editing, proofreading, and formatting. On their website, they mention that they have connections to academic institutions and are “committed to working within the legitimate boundaries of academic honesty.” Perhaps worth a look, if you’re interested in paying someone to review a draft. In addition, note that our office maintains a List of Freelance Formatters and Editors who work in the DeKalb area and who are equipped to assist thesis and dissertation writers with NIU Graduate School guidelines. We can confidently refer these local freelancers to writers whose documents may need extensive help with matters of grammar and punctuation in addition to things like formatting of tables, figures, page numbers, citations, or end references.

Free NIU Services

Also remember that NIU student writers can get constructive help with no extra fees attached. The University Writing Center is a free consultation service for students at all levels. We’ve heard that most of their clients in recent years have been grad students. Finally, come see us in the Thesis and Dissertation Office! We provide free editorial assistance and expert help on formatting your important document. We’ll be happy to hear from you.